What's Happening

December 18, 2025, Phoenix, Arizona – Adrian Dominican Associate Sharon Pikula, of Olympia, Washington, recently returned from an “eye-opening experience” in her volunteer work offering various services to immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers.

The November 17, 2025, to December 3, 2025, session was Sharon’s third experience of working with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur volunteer program in Phoenix, in which she stayed in a house for volunteers owned by the U.S. East-West Province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

Sharon spent much of her time working with women from nations such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Congo who sought help with their English. In this work, she volunteered with the Arizona Refugee Association, which offers legal support and English classes.

“It was very humbling to be part of that, just to see the incredible dedication that these people have trying to learn English,” Sharon said. “It was a beautiful opportunity to have some one-on-one time. My approach was to give them as much love, compassion, and affirmation as I could, to let them know I accept them, [and] affirm them as they are learning, for whatever lies ahead for them.”

Sharon noted that how the United States is working with refugees and asylum-seekers has “changed significantly” since her previous experiences in February and November 2024. The current administration has limited the number of refugees that the United States will accept from the United Nations for the 2026 fiscal year.

“When [refugees] are vetted and come to the United States, the U.N. has funds to give them housing, and a lot of nonprofits have stepped in, especially in Phoenix, to get them the apartment they received,” Sharon explained. “Then there’s the scramble of getting jobs and learning English.”

Sharon said the process has been difficult for the refugees and for the nonprofits trying to serve them. Now, she said, the number of refugees in the Phoenix area has diminished, and local nonprofits are offering their services to others in need – women coming out of domestic violence shelters and people transitioning from homelessness or prison.

This change has affected Sharon’s ministry with Welcome to America, a Phoenix nonprofit that helps refugees settle into apartments and, after they have settled, offers welcome rituals. “Volunteers would come with interpreters to affirm them for being there.” Because Phoenix has received fewer refugees, the agency has begun hosting “re-welcoming rituals” to refugees who have settled in the area within the last 24 months, following up with the families to find out if they have any specific needs.

Sharon attended a re-welcoming ritual with a family of six from Pakistan: a father and mother and four daughters, ages 3 to fifth grade. She volunteered that Saturday morning with four high school students and their teacher, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, and a representative of Welcome to America. During their hour-long visit, the volunteers spoke to the family and helped the daughters put together jigsaw puzzles. “It was just a way to say, ‘We’re happy that you’re here,’ and listen to the little girls talk about school and their favorite food,” Sharon said. 

Sharon came away from the two-week experience having learned a great deal. She was moved by the generosity and dedication of many of the nonprofits and the volunteers. She served at one point with a women’s Muslim organization that ran a warehouse and a storefront for distributing clothes. “They serve everyone who is in need, which is heart-warming,” she said. She was also amazed at the networking of the various nonprofits: one organization that takes donated clothing not fit to be worn and uses the material to make something else. “They’re all trying to do their thing, but also trying to be interconnected to help each other,” she said.

Associate Sharon Pikula, top center, works with another volunteer and four children of a family from Pakistan as part of a re-welcoming ritual for families who have settled in the United States in the past 24 months.

Sharon also came to realize a truth she had heard from Sister Joan Delaplane, OP, during a preaching program in St. Louis in the 1990s. Sister Joan had noted that preaching the Word of God in your everyday life can be “just as amazing” as preaching from the pulpit. “As a 30-something-year-old, I wasn’t on board with that,” Sharon said, but a recent experience in Phoenix brought it home to her. While working with Gathering Humanity to provide 30 large packages of staples to refugee families, Sharon realized the packages contained very few spices – an addition that would help the families to cook food according to their local tradition. 

Sharon and another volunteer went to a local specialty grocery store to load up on spices that would make the refugee families feel more at home. The local cashier looked in the basket and saw a mound of spices. “You could see the look on her face,” Sharon said. She explained the purpose of the spices: adding “pizazz” to the refugees’ food. “There were tears coming down this woman’s eyes,” Sharon recalled. She spoke about Gathering Humanity, and the store manager heard her explanation and presented her with a bouquet of flowers.

Sharon realized that buying the spices was a form of preaching to the cashier and the store manager, as well as to the recipients. “We got back and divvied up the spices,” she said. “It’s a drop in the bucket in some ways … but you put your effort in and you have to allow the Spirit to take hold in whatever way it can, and it brings comfort to these families. Joan’s lessons are still being taught …. Never discount your actions.”

 

Feature photo at top: Associate Sharon Pikula in a warehouse owned by Welcome to America, a Phoenix-based nonprofit that provides asylum seekers with furniture and other items to help them set up a household in the area.

 

November 26, 2025, Detroit – About 40 Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates and interested community members spent the weekend of October 31-November 1, 2025, immersed in the history of the civil rights movement in the United States. 

The Selma Retreat – organized by the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Diversity Enactment Circle and offered through Weber Retreat and Conference Center – included a screening of the film Selma, dinner, group discussion of the film on Friday, and a visit to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit on Saturday. The program was designed to honor the 60th anniversary of the historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights advocates who sought the guaranteed right to vote for African Americans.

The retreat was an opportunity for Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates to live out the Congregation’s Diversity Enactment, which commits to “acknowledge and repent of our complicity in the divisions prevalent in our Church and our world; act to dismantle unjust systems; and build the beloved community in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, hunger, and hate.”

“Everyone who was involved appreciated the opportunity, the discussions, and in that I think there’s a growth – whatever growth that might be,” said Sister Janice Brown, OP, who helped to organize the retreat. “It was different for each person, but I think everyone left holding something new in their heart.” 

“We continue to work toward and understand what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God, and that life – humanity and [all of] creation – has a certain dignity,” Sister Janice said. “That’s what Martin Luther King focused on, and he didn’t do it alone.”

Sister Patricia McDonald, OP, helped organize the retreat. “We wanted to help people become aware of the injustices some people have to deal with,” she said. She added that the retreat was a “good reinforcement” of what she had learned as a history teacher and historian. “I’ve always looked at civil rights as an area of study,” she said. “It’s a social justice issue, and the African-American population has been treated so unjustly.” 

The Selma Retreat was not Sister Pat’s first study of the civil rights movement. She participated in an April 2019 civil rights pilgrimage to Alabama with seven other Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates and members of the First Presbyterian Church in Tecumseh, Michigan. “What hit me was to be physically in the space and to walk the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and to know that that was where African Americans were beaten,” she said.

Both experiences reinforced for Sister Pat the awareness of the racial injustice still found in the United States. “Our rules are not fair,” she said. “It instills in me the responsibility we have to be just and … to have a social consciousness. What struck me is the need to change unjust rules, practices, and laws that exist in our democracy.”

Sister Nancyann Turner, OP, was especially impressed by the integration of the civil rights advocates’ faith with their actions. “Hopefully, that foundation and integration is part of all that we are about.” 

Sister Nancyann also admired the courage and persistence of the civil rights activists. “I have not yet had to put my life on the line for my beliefs, but I surely hope I would be willing to,” she said. “I lament with so many people today and I surely want to walk with them in hope.” 

Sister Janet Wright, OP, said she was jolted when walking into the museum. “Some of the fear and anxiety came back for a few minutes,” as she recalled original intense feelings in 1965 during the Selma March. “Some of our Sisters wanted very much to go to Selma but couldn’t,” she said. 

In general, Sister Janet said, the retreat “has given me a renewed and more informed awareness of the courage of all involved in civil rights and voting rights.”

Sister Janice believes the call of civil rights activists 60 years ago is still ringing today. “We are called to stand up for one another,” she said. “We are called to speak truth to power and to do that in a way that is respectful. We’re part of a larger body of Christ, and we’re called to [speak out] for one another.”

 

Caption for above feature photo: Participants in during the second day of the October 31-November 1, 2025, Selma Retreat pose in the foyer of the Charles Wright Museum of African American History.